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Radical Resistance in Conservative Times: New Asian American Organizations in the 1990s
By Diane C. Fujino and Kye Leung
Part 16 of 16
1. See Jeremy Blecher & Tim Costello, Global Village or Global Pillage: Economic Reconstruction From the Bottom (Boston: South End Press, 1994); Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret War Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (Boston: South End Press, 1988); Michael Om i & Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, From the 1960s to the 1990s (NY: Routledge, 1994); Paul Ong, Edna Bonacich & Lucie Cheng, "The Political Economy of Capitalist Restructuring and the New Asian Immigration," in Ong, Bonacich & Cheng (Eds.), The New Asian Immigration in Los Angeles and Global Restructuring (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994, pp. 3-35).
2. Although there is no single definition, we use the term "radical" to refer to the root cause of a problem particularly capitalism and its global extension, imperialism, as well as racism, sexism, and heterosexism. Radicals analyze problems and devise strategies for combating systemic oppression. "Revolutionaries" go further than radicals in not only naming the problematic system, but also in advocating a replacement system such as socialism. By contrast, "liberal" groups tend to focus on the immediate problem without connecting it to larger structural forces. From a radical perspective, liberals are problematic because they are swayed by their own self-interest (see Mao, "Combat Liberalism"). "Progressives" lie in between liberals and radicals. While they see race, gender, and class inequalities, their solutions often do not embody opposition to capitalism per se. Certainly, these categories are nuanced and complex, and an individual may not fit neatly within any one grouping. To give a concrete, yet simplified, illustration: Liberals oppose the low pay and difficult work conditions of garment workers, but only to the extent that paying higher wages does not significantly increase their clothing costs. Progressives oppose race, gender, and class inequalities, but it is radicals who advocate that labor exploitation is inevitable under capitalism, an economic system that requires low wages in order to increase the profits of the few big business owners. And revolutionaries argue that the only way to end labor exploitation is to build a socialist or communist society. Here we are examining one's political ideology and practice, which goes beyond the tactics one may use. We do not identify political orientations based on tactics because people with different -politics can use the same tactics (e.g., civil disobedience). Thus, the militancy of a tactic can be decoupled from the analysis of the problem.
3. We are grateful to the following people for providing interviews, information, and materials about their organizations: Betty Chan, Caroline Choi, Sumaya Dinglasan, George lechika-McKinney, Don Kim, Nadia Kim, Soudary Kittivong, Sun Lee, Meizhu Lui, Daniel Magpali, Mo Nishida, Robyn Rodriguez, Jee Ryu, Eric Tang, and Ryan Yokota. We appreciate insightful feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript from Betty Chan, Fred Ho, George lechika-McKinney, Nadia Kim, Sun Lee, Mo Nishida, and Ryan Yokota. Thanks also go to the numerous activists with whom we have had informal discussions.
4. The FBI's COINTELPRO succeeded in murdering radical activists, imprisoning them, scaring them out of the Movement, and creating such a disruption in the revolutionary movements, especially in the African community, that many organizations collapsed and activists left the Movement. In addition, internal conflicts, familial and work demands, and limited resources undermined the revolutionary movement. By the mid-1970s, the visible revolutionary Asian American Movement had mainly dissolved. But Asian revolutionaries continued on throughout the 1980s in formations like the League of Revolutionary Struggle, which was two-third people of color, and to the present as independents or members of predominantly White or multiracial organizations.
5. While the Zapatistas struck on January 1, 1994, to protest the North American Free Trade Agreement, the original decision to start the armed phase began in 1992, with the commemoration of 500 years of conquest (Medea Benjamin, "Interview: Subcommandante Marcos," in Elaine Katzenberger (Ed.), First World Ha Ha Ha! The Zapatista Challe , San Francisco: City Lights, 1995, pp. 57-70).
6. "An Introduction to APT FORCE," APT FORCE's website, wwwapi-force.org.
7. "The Role of Electoral Politics in Progressive Organizing: Issues Not Candidates," The Force newsletter of APT FORCE, 1998, 1.
8. ibid.
9. "Economic Justice for San Francisco," from APT FORCE's website, www.api-force.org.
10. Fred Ho, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly-But-Necessary," in the present anthology.